How to Make Twitter Not Fun

Make no mistake. Twitter can be a fun and effective vehicle for engaging with the people who influence your company’s success.

But for those in highly regulated industries such as pharma or healthcare, publishing even a simple tweet can get complicated. So on a humorous note, we present “10 Easy Ways to Make Twitter No Fun at All.” (Otherwise known as, “Don’t Do These Things!”)

  1. Issue a company wide directive that employees can never, ever use social media out of fear that they might say something bad about a product.2. Lose your login information, and realize the only person who has it is a former employee.3. Send all tweets to your legal department for approval. (Thus, ensure each tweet has at least a two-week lead time.)4. Attempt to explain to your CEO why a two-paragraph tweet won’t work.5. Make sure to ask partner companies to review all tweets in advance. Make sure the partner’s public information office approves it, too.6. Delegate your twitter strategy — and all social media activities, for that matter — to a dynamic duo consisting of your college intern and a Luddite lawyer. Professional marketers and communicators have better things to do.7. Only tweet links to full manuscripts in peer-reviewed publications that require a login. 8. Submit your tweets for IRB approval. Be sure an ethicist is involved.9. Follow no one. Mention no one. Retweet no one. All that matters is what you have to say!
  2. Strip any personality from your tweets. This is business, after all.

OK. All joking aside, Twitter is a great way to start a conversation with the world, even if you’re in a regulated industry. Be informed of any rules that govern what you may say in a tweet, and follow those rules to a T.

But beyond that, use your creativity (and yes, have fun!) in developing an engaged audience.

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